“It is german to the matter, I think. Thy golden treasures sink thee even like the shipwrecked miser’s laden belt. Not reason exalted is wine’s, but reason debased--so lowered in the mind’s balance that it sees all the world lopsided, deformed. Such is my quarrel, sir, with the author of the _Jew of Malta_. A man cannot lust with him but he can do naught else; a Jew cannot be a Jew but he is an unredeemed monster. It is not so in fact; we derive from the multitudinous past--are compact of a thousand inconsistencies. There is more good than ill in all men. The purpose of the drama should be to hold a mirror up to Nature--to give us truth, not anamorphosis. There is no truth in wine, despite the proverb.” He moved to go, and the playwright sprang to his feet. “No truth?” he cried. “Then let me swallow lies faster than Churchmen can promulgate them. The world’s redeemed, they say--I see it not; we are the children of a beneficent Providence, they say--It will not even feed us, but sends the worm and storm to kill the grain It’s given. My figments are the types of what I see--passion, black malice, usury--selfishness unredeemed by God’s love, but tempered, brute-like, by His terror. An arrant orb of reptiles, worshipping through fear. And so I paint it--sober. Then--drink! Ah, it is my good angel, my better half, my sweet gentle mate that woos me to the larger temperance. I could show you things--but there! Not truth?--not sordid truth? Give me the noble lie, then, that transports me to Elysium, that lends me the wider vision, and I will rain benevolence on this crawling sphere. I am no pessimist in wine.” His eyes were flaming, his breast heaved, some real emotion strung him. The great lawyer smiled. “God forbid I should debar you Elysium,” he said, and throwing a gold angel on the table, he left the room. For some moments after he was gone Marlowe, his passion slowly subsiding, stood eyeing the bright coin. “A lackey’s vail,” he said at length, “yet the obolus to pay my passage to Elysium. And did I not earn it? Answer, old sack; answer, my rosy Thaïs of the leaping-house. Elysium, Elysium! O, it opens to me!” A hand came past him like a snake and nipped the coin. “The debt you ought me,” gulped Archer, with a pallid snigger. “We are quits at last, Christopher.” With a snarl the playwright turned on the thief. “Give me back mine own.” “It is mine.” He hugged and cherished the piece convulsively. “You ought it me. I have the first claim--to Doll and your Elysium.” “To hell rather--I’ll send you there--be warned.” “I’ll not yield it.” He slithered aside, preparing to bolt. With a scream of rage Marlowe drew a knife from his belt and sprang upon him. The actor, warding off the assault, struck out blindly. His arm caught the vicious wrist with a force that made it twist and recoil, driving back the blade full into the eye of the assailant. There followed a gasp, a stagger, a tearing fall--and then silence.